johnwen

WHEW!! Thanks for the pictures :)

Done and done and ............. :)

Kathy, Here is a YouTube video but it's for a Dometic. It does show you how the tabs lock into its hole at about the 9 minute mark. It does give a good idea of how the door works but it's not exactly the same as a Norcold. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXQCQgKwjGo

Hi Kathy, That is the correct part for the left side. The right is 919041. If you have two hex head screws underneath the freezer door, Norcold told me to simply remove the screws on one side and wiggle the assyembly out. After the reassembly you gently push it back up to where the tabs pop back into its hole. Norcold is going to send me the parts to Ft Davis park in Texas and I've notified the campground its coming so hopefully I'll get it fixed... we have 2 weeks at the park and it sems pretty simple. Norcold doesn't normally send parts to the end user but in this case (being simple) they will and it's covered by warranty. However if I mess something up as far as functioning of the fridge, I'll void all warranty. Best of luck, John

Ticket opened, thanks. Will probably seek out a service center around Ft Davis, TX. We'll be there for a rall

My freezer door hinges broke. The tabs that fit into the hole on the inside of the fridge. Springs will still work. Just the tabs broke and allow door to hang down. Anyone have experience with this? TIA John

Hi Maleah, Welcome!! We are both retired AF, 25 and 15 years ago. We love this life and hope to meet you someday. Thanks for your service as a nurse and your husband in the Army. This is a wonderful, informative forum and I hope you gain much information here. John

I forgot to mention we do use an Anderson WD hitch that we got from Oliver.

Welcome, Richard We have Hull#996, twin beds, optional aluminum tray on the tongue and the standard ceramic toilet. The only thing we use the tray for is to store chocks and hoses. As full-timers we are pretty well loaded up and sit at 6800 lbs with a 675 lb tongue weight. We started our journey after many trips to the CAT scales to make sure we were legal. We are just below our truck's GVWR, by 150 lbs, after taking 120 lbs out every time we travel and putting in the Oliver, which takes the Oliver to 6700 lbs. And that's with empty tanks! But with everything we need including a full fridge and pantry. That does leave us the opportunity to fill the fresh water tank before heading into boondocking territory. Pretty much we now have to get rid of something to get something. I think you will be getting the newer 2 way fridge. We have the 3 way and, although small, it suits our needs. We saw the 2 way at a demo during the Oliver rally this year and saw the size of the freezer in that unit. We did not like it for sure....way to small for us. So I would definitely be in the market for a portable freezer. Then again, we full time. You might not need the room. When we started looking at buying a trailer, the wet bath was a no-go for us but we couldn't find a dry bath trailer to suit us. I found the bigger trailers were nice but we would need a bigger truck. We gave up looking for a while and then started looking at fiberglass. Long story, we bought a new Casita, with the wet bath of course, and just hoped it would be ok. The Casita bath is quite a bit smaller than the Oliver. We were definitely fine with it and I laugh at myself now for so much worrying about it. Don't hold me to this but I think you would get your investment back should you decide you can't live with it. Best of luck with your decision. John

In total agreement with Bill. We had the trailer and truck done by CGI, in June, and are totally pleased with their work and the fact it only took 2 hours total to clean and dry the Oliver2 AND truck. That feat would have taken me 7 hours easily after waxing the 2. John

Thanks, Brian, We traded the KTTs out at Oliver back in May. We're happy with the Tochtas. They are actually a lot lighter than the KTTs and easier to move around for hatch access. John

Hi Brian, They were 2 months old! Don't know if anyone else had any problems. Both mattresses had issues. I've asked 4 or 5 couples and they indicated they had no problems. Best of luck with your decision.

Welcome, Bob and Frankie, If you'll be picking up in April you should travel to Alabama for the Oliver rally in May. It's a class act and you'll learn many things. Hope to see you "out there" Wen and John

Thanks, John, for the info and the links. John

I can't seem to find any info in the Oliver manuals regarding physical adjustment of the optional solar package we had installed on our Oliver. We have the 320W panel on the roof and I see 4 wingnuts that allow repositioning one side or the other to favor the sunlight. Can I travel with one side high and the other, low? Or does the panel need to travel level, as was installed? Thanks, John

I hear ya Mike! They probably put the bolts on a little better, back in the day. Ours is only 6 months old. John

Mine was a little different....Upon starting the a/c after not using for a week, we encountered a very strange noise as the fan came on. We shut it off and I removed the outside cover to inspect. We had a frog get on the fan blade of our Casita and that was a strange sound as well and I was expecting to find a similar problem. Upon a quick inspection I found no critters, so we restarted and the the noise was much louder. We shut it down and I took a closer look and found a bolt missing on one fan mount, the other side was loose, and the smaller aft mount had its nut halfway off the bolt. The noise apparently was the fan blades gouging into its plastic shroud and sent pieces into the trailer and deposited them onto the inside roof by the side vent.. I was able to tighten things down after finding the bolt laying in the bottom of the a/c pan. I figured to look around while I was up there and found the easy start capacitor unattached. It wasn't causing any problems that I could see. The 2 sided tape used to mount it had given way, I'll probably reattach with VHB tape soon. I'll need to talk to service first. Question....I'd like to put a self locking nut on the bolt where it comes through the rubber mount bushing and would appreciate any ideas. Longer bolt to get the nut on? It appears that the bolt threads in to something embedded in the rubber shock mount as it tightened up pretty well. All seems to be working for now, will take another look in a week or so. Ticket submitted. John

closed for us :)

Agreed!

I saw a caulker in action on our first factory visit, late in 2021. He was toward the end of the assembly line trying to caulk underneath the bell band. He was holding the caulk gun horizontal to the ground trying to caulk upwards to fill the belly band seam. Of course almost all was going down the side of the hull and nothing going upwards into the void. I'm sure he was new to the job and never caulked anything before and had a supervisor/trainer following behind wiping the caulk up into the void. He was very young, not that that means anything. I asked him if I could get a picture of the caulk in case I wanted to purchase any later. He held the gun up and I took a picture of the caulk tube and said "thank you". He never said a word and was very frustrated upon returning to work. I really don't think he was a happy camper, probably just a bad day. But I can remember thinking I hope he had a day off when my Oliver reached its caulking time. So on delivery day I inspected all the caulk I could find and didn't see many problems. The only problem was the roof was very dusty with fiberglass dust so I couldn't really see the shell surface, but I did notice a lot of sealant smearing, like someone didn't wipe up the excess caulk as they were going along. We had to leave because of an approaching storm. A couple of days later I washed the trailer and I was amazed everything on the roof that required caulk was a mess. There were no leaks anywhere but I couldn't believe someone would leave such a mess, coming from a company like Oliver. I suspect the untrained caulker was moved up to the roof where it's hard to see his work. That was my second factory visit. The first visit, prior to Covid, was quite different in that the work force was a bit older and worked with great detail. That was encouraging to see. The second tour, after Covid and factory shutdown for a while, was quite different in that the workforce was younger and I saw 4 different working stations manned by people on cell phones. There were very few people working that paid attention to details as did the previous workforce. My guess is Oliver lost some key people because of the Covid shutdown and had a difficult time getting that experience back. I'm surprised something as simple as caulking is a continuing problem. If Mike and Jason don't get any feedback from us, they won't have anything to take to production to back them up when they go to make suggestions. I hear of more and more quality control issues. Honestly, these issues would have taken a toll on my initial purchase decisions. Especially at the new prices for the 2023's. All in all, we love our Oliver and still think it's the best trailer out there. And the service team is top notch. I wish service was the quality control for the company. I hope this doesn't step on anyone's toes but I see comments on the forum making suggestions to start a service ticket so these issues can be resolved. They are right, IMO. If it's not documented, no-one will know there's a problem. The service team is getting busier and busier fixing problems from production and I sure hope we don't lose any service personnel. Sorry for the rant, just wanted to share my experiences. John

Gosh, Mossey I was going to respond with some ideas but you had them already listed plus several I didn't think of. Glad you answered while was typing . Nice answer! John

I talked with Jason about this at the rally and suggested the factory switch to JB Weld or something different. He talked about the very dusty environment/lack of adequate preparation and the time expended between squirting some glue vs mixing epoxy. He told me he has brought this to the attention of production, but I think there is a somewhat delicate line between service and production. But whatever you do at least submit a ticket so Jason has more leverage behind him when getting something changed at production level. John

See you there Linda and Dave John

Welcome PB52, We picked ours up in Jan this year. We have had a few issues, but Oliver's legendary service team has been wonderful and we haven't thought twice about buying our "Bessie". The Dometic A/C is very noisy but you will have the option of upgrading to a Truma A/C...make sure to get the Truma! It is much, much quieter. Very easy to tow with my 1/2 ton Silverado. Best of luck with your decision John

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